A misstep in Texas

In their zeal to curb truancy, school officials in San Antonio are requiring students at two schools to carry photo IDs with radio-frequency identification chips that can track the students’ location.

If officials were seeking a way to illustrate that perennial reading-list selection, Orwell’s “1984,” they could hardly have done better. But as policy, this is an outrageous violation of common sense and basic rights. Students are neither criminals nor cattle. And critics point out that child predators could obtain technology allowing them to track students.

Some students are refusing to comply, citing violations of their privacy and religious liberty. The school district has threatened to suspend, or curtail the privileges of those students.

The reason behind such a misguided policy is simple to find — money. The Northside Independent School District could receive up to $2 million in additional state funds if it succeeds in reducing truancy with the tracking program. However, some of that money would go to offset startup and maintenance costs for the program itself, which already have reached $260,000.

We understand school officials’ frustrations, but if any Texas public schools are losing the fight against truancy it is surely because of an inability to offer students an engaging, inspiring, and meaningful educational experience. And students who drop out for reasons other than academics — such as a need to work to support their families — will neither be retained nor lured back by Big Brother tactics.

Even if Texas classrooms were a model for the nation, and the state were free of socioeconomic problems that depress attendance, tracking students in this way is morally wrong and violates numerous basic rights. Students and their families should stand firm and fight the program to the highest court that will hear their pleas. Their resolve demonstrates that if they have learned nothing else in the schools of the Lone Star State, they at least recognize a violation of the Bill of Rights when they see one.